How do Fronts, air masses and High/Low pressure areas interact? I always thought that fronts occur at the boundaries between Highs and lows, but reading carefully I see it is at air mass boundaries with different temperatures. Why aren't these air mass boundaries clearly marked as highs and lows are.? Can high/low pressure areas be contained in or cross over air masses? This all seems confusing to me and I can't find explanations anywhere.Thanks,Paul

I don't understand. How could a topic have 380 views and not a single reply? Surely some one of the 380 could have at least pointed me to a source. This is Accuweather, Probably the best known and biggest supplier of weather products.

I don't understand. How could a topic have 380 views and not a single reply? Surely some one of the 380 could have at least pointed me to a source. This is Accuweather, Probably the best known and biggest supplier of weather products.

I suspect the 'true weather affectionados' view that question like the one I had on a Economics 101 exam.'Compare & contrast the causes of the Great Depression'. Hundreds of authors have written a multitude of books trying to answer that question - with varying degrees of success; and I am supposed to answer it in 1 hour on the 10 or 12 pages of a 'Blue Book'? NF Way!

How do Fronts, air masses and High/Low pressure areas interact? I always thought that fronts occur at the boundaries between Highs and lows, but reading carefully I see it is at air mass boundaries with different temperatures. Why aren't these air mass boundaries clearly marked as highs and lows are.? Can high/low pressure areas be contained in or cross over air masses? This all seems confusing to me and I can't find explanations anywhere.Thanks,Paul

Fronts are just boundaries between air masses. The air masses are dictated by where they come from. It may be hard to visualize in a 3D perspective but try to think of high and low pressure regions as domes, high pressure dome up and low pressure dome down. The biggest reason for the difference in air masses is due to temperature and dew point differences within the air masses. Low pressure systems like to form on boundaries that setup from differential winds at the surface, within those air masses. To the north of the boundary you see north or northeasterly winds while to the south you see south to southwesterly winds from this you develop the beginning stages of the low pressure development. As frontogenetical processes continue to sharpen this boundary an area of energy gets injected into this region of the boundary and starts the process of low pressure formation, usually the energy comes from a disturbance in the mid levels or more commonly a shortwave in being injected into an upper level trough. Air mass boundaries are not labeled because for the public many do not really want to know about what type of air mass it is they just want to know what the temp, and in summer dew point, will be for their day as well as maybe the chance of precip.

If I am understanding your last question properly high pressures namely come with the air mass, usually the drier ones since we are in a westerly upper level flow across the U.S., where low pressures tend to ride along the boundaries and mix and change air masses in their life span. Although we can get warm moist air masses from the Gulf and western Atlantic again clashing with each other will help make the low pressure systems to restore the necessary balance the atmosphere tries to achieve.